Jane Shepard stepped down from the CIC and made her way to the elevator. The crew seemed to be pumped up and ready for action after her speech, though she knew that accepting 3 aliens on board might take some time for them. Well, traveling to Feros should leave them enough, to do just that.
But at the moment she had more pressing matters to tend to.

She fired her fist into the elevator controls which took her to her quarters. She locked the doors, got her PDA out and started searching for the only name that kept flooding her mind since she first saw the Council.

Saren Arterius.

She wanted to check the sealed Spectre records of him the Council has offered her to help with her investigation, but to her surprise, they were gone.

"Fuck" she cried out "That asshole hacked his own profile!" She was impressed. Saren deleted his own data on purpose, so she can't get a glimpse of it and learn any valuable information of him. So Jane turned to the beauties of the extranet and looked him up. All she could find was an article about the youngest turian ever to become a spectre: a young Saren who looked just as frightening as his older version. Other that this she couldn't find anything valuable. She browsed for hours, but nothing came up, no articles, no interviews or other media. Eventually all she could find was another picture. She did not know who took it or when, but it was the most haunting picture she had ever seen. And she's seen some dinosaur faces in her life.

The picture reminded her of their meeting in the Council's chambers. How arrogant and dangerous he looked... those piercing blue eyes. Everyone who had heard of or met Saren was terrified or disgusted, but all she could see in him was raw strength. What are these Reapers that he's after? She tossed her red hair behind her ears. She was going to crack this turian's secret and finally end the overwhelming boredom in her heart.

The blue light coming from the computer lit up Saren's eyes even more. He was so deep into his research he almost molded into the screen. He went through tons of reports, interviews, pictures, articles and the more he saw, the more he was amused by this squishy human girl. Jane was practically a war hero at 18 after the Skyllian Blitz, where she single-handedly kicked the ass of an entire batarian troop.

There was even footage of that. She moved like lightning, effortlessly, her moves resembled dancing to Saren. The camera was shaky and the view was bad, but he could see her bright red hair flying everywhere, she had pistols in both hands. She cut through the batarians like a hot knife through butter.

And those interviews... she didn't give many, but the reporters were practically destroyed by the end. She was quick, witty and strong.

So... she was the one who used the beacon on Eden Prime... and now she was after him.

Saren's mandibles twitched, like he was smiling. He stood up with the strange thought in his head that he's looking forward to the moment she catches up to him, and he can finally wipe that cheeky smile from her face.

"The Cipher is your goal" a voice ripped through Saren's mind, and he knew it was Sovereign. A shiver went down his spine.

He turned the computer off and stood in the darkness for a long minute, before making his way to his bed.

Destruction. War. Chaos. Panic.
Bloody images filled Jane's mind again and again, and a horrendous voice screeched in her head. Her heart sped up and she felt like she was dying. An inevitable darkness followed her faster and faster and she couldn't get away. She tried screaming but her body went numb. She saw an insect-like creature for a second.

She bursted out of her bed, sweating, barely being able to breathe. The same damned vision kept creeping back into her mind since she touched the beacon. The same images, over and over again, tiring her out every night. She eventually calmed herself down and went to take a shower. There were only hours left before they would reach Feros.

Finally, some action – she thought as she dropped her casuals and stood under the hot stream of water. When finished, she just jumped to her desk, raising her PDA and checking her messages. Captain Anderson, that fucker Udina and tons of ads about krogan testicles.

"Wrex, if you could see this" she laughed as she scrolled down the list. That was when something caught her eye. It was a message from an unknown source, without any subject. She clicked on it.

"You can't catch me."

She flew out of her chair, kicking it back to the other side of the room. She was startled and amused at the same time, because she knew that this message could only come from one person, or one turian, to be exact.
Before she could do anything, the comms on her door chimed.

"Yes? Who's that?" She asked, closing the message and quickly putting her chair back to its original position. She fought down a smile, she was so excited.

"The best sniper in the whole galaxy" came a familiar low voice from the comms. Jane opened the door to reveal Garrus, who was ready for battle, and clearly excited that she already picked him on their first mission.

"You're not even the best shooter on this ship" she laughed, letting the turian in.

"Ahw, I know you're jealous, there's no point hiding it" said Garrus and made his way into her quarters. Since she brought him on the Normandy, they quickly found a mutual tone of playful banter and dirty jokes, and this time was no exception. "We have an ETA of an hour till Feros and your hair is still wet?" He commented.

"At least I have hair, not like you, you dinosaur-face!" She laughed and sat down to her desk again, motioning for Garrus to come take a look at her screen.

"Can you at least tell me what a dinosaur is?" he asked, continuing their play. He then took a look at her PDA where Jane pointed. It was a one-line message from an unknown source.

Garrus' mandibles twitched, and his green eyes widened. Heavy air filled the room as the turian buried his face into his commander's PDA. He looked at Jane, but his face was void of the happiness and playfulness it had a minute ago. His eyes radiated disgust and a low rumbling escaped his throat.

"Where did you get this from?" He asked slowly.

"I have no idea, it doesn't say. But it can only be from Saren..." Jane said, no expression on her face.

"Let me check" he said, and they switched places. Garrus started digging into the source code of the message. "Ah spirits, it's all encrypted, we won't be able to find out where he sent it from."

"Yeah well" Jane started as she gathered her stuff together "He is a professional." She lingered for a moment "But why would he contact me? He risks a lot with this little message."

Garrus stood up and crossed his arms, looking at Jane. The obvious concern and anger was easily readable from his gestures. He was disgusted by Saren.

"He has a reason I'm sure" he grumbled as he turned around to leave her quarters "A reason you might not want to find out" and with this the door swooshed closed behind him.

"Or a reason I need to find out" Jane said to herself as she was now alone in the room.

Feros was proven to be a hell of an adventure. There were geth everywhere and the corporation named ExoGeni was hiding a weird creature called the "Thorian" which eventually poisoned the colonists in the region. When they finally found the thorian and managed to beat the shit out of it, they had encountered an asari woman named Shiala.

"I served Matriarch Benezia" she started "She allied herself with Saren to guide him down a gentler path. But Saren was more compelling than she had originally thought. Benezia lost her way."

Tali and Garrus exchanged looks.
"Her plan backfired" he said.

"Saren can control minds?" Jane asked with innocent curiosity. Maybe that's why he was messaging her?

"No, he has a vessel. An enormous warship unlike anything I've ever seen. He calls it Sovereign. It can dominate the minds of his followers." Shiala started nervously walking around "They become indoctrinated to Saren's will. The process is subtle, it can take days or weeks. But in the end, it's absolute."

Jane swallowed down her nerves. She didn't see the whole picture yet as to what Saren wants, but she had an unsettling feeling inside her stomach. Normally she loved action, fighting, as that was what she was the best at. She hated everything that other people called a "a normal life" and tried to fill her own with as much fun as she possibly could. Fighting the thorian and saving the colonists with grenades was fun, just like discovering hundreds of planets in the galaxy, but this indoctrination... she already hated it. It sounded like something that takes away the core of your purpose in life. Freedom.

"Saren allied himself with the thorian, because he needed its secrets. He used my biotics to achieve his goal" Shiala said. "And after he got what he wanted, he ordered the geth to destroy the thorian. He knows you're after him, and the Conduit. He knows you are following his steps. He attacked the thorian so you could not gain the Cipher."

Garrus looked right at Shepard. His look was full of suspicion. They thought of the same thing: Saren reached out to her to display his dominance. Or to cover his haste.

"Cipher? What's that?" Jane asked, and received the answer, that the Cipher is the prothean knowledge that helped Saren understand the visions of the beacon on Eden Prime. Help understand it, decipher it, and through that, bring back the reapers.

Jane became more and more anxious by the minute. She commended Shiala to give her the Cipher as well, so she can stop Saren. At any cost.

Benezia looked into the CIC. The bridge was empty, only one figure stood there in the dark, gazing down upon the galaxy map. Saren rested his arms on the console, his blue eyes glaring, fixated on one spot of the map. His silhouette was almost one with the shadows of the ship, his talons firmly gripping the railing above the controls. He hasn't moved for minutes, and just stood there like a dark statue.

"We lost communication with the geth ship on Feros" she started "The colony is still intact, but I have no information on the thorian."

There was no immediate reply. She waited for Saren to burst out in anger like last time, she waited for Sovereign to scream in her mind, but nothing happened. Saren only slowly turned around, and made his way to her with slow, heavy steps. He towered over her, but did not touch her.

"We have other objectives now" he whispered. His low voice rumbled through the CIC, and a gentle humming flooded the room. It came from everywhere and it made its way to her heart. She was eager to listen to whatever Saren had to say.

"You need to pay a visit to one of my research facilities in Noveria – The coordinates of the Mu Relay are hidden in the mind of the rachni queen there. You will break the queen and bring me what I need."

Benezia's heart leaped.

"You won't come with me?" She asked, a feeling of loneliness filling her mind.

"No. Virmire needs my attention."

The mess hall was empty when Jane exited the elevator. It was the middle of the night, and everyone has gone to bed now. She hoped to get some sleep after everything that's happened on Feros, thinking the Cipher might calm her mind from the flood of those visions. She was glad she collected Liara, because now she was sure that the visions were about the Reapers wiping out the protheans.

But the visions would still not go away. Every night she awoke after seeing the same pictures, feeling the same feeling of hopelessness. The screaming in her head would never stop, and she slowly given in to the sight. The suffering, the pain... the more she knew, the better she understood.

She poured coffee into her mug and buried her face in her hands.

"You can't catch me."

This message slowly fucked up every minute of her life.
That one short sentence made her doubt everything. Yes, it ultimately meant that Saren was superior, but why did he reach out to her like that? He didn't need to say that he was the bad guy, everyone already knew... maybe-

"Can't sleep?"

Shepard quickly turned around startled by the fact that she was suddenly not alone.

"Geez, you make me shit my pants" she laughed, noticing Garrus entering the mess hall by the elevator.

"The great Commander Shepard is scared?" He asked happily, starting another banter, but there was no reply from Shepard. She just stood there, squeezing her mug in her hand. The turian approached her and put his talons on her shoulder as a means to comfort her. "The message... Don't even pay attention to it. It's just rubbish meant to mess with your mind."

"I know why he wrote it" she said suddenly. Garrus waited for her to finish.

"I'm the only one in this galaxy who saw the same thing he did." And with that Jane left the mess, and even left her coffee.